| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: vill not hang! Come, you noddleheads! I vill lick you, all
together, von after der odder! I vill blay hell! I vill do
eferydings! Und I vill die pefore I hang!"
The sailor permitted the two other men to clinch with the mad
creature. They rolled and tossed about furiously, tearing up snow
and tundra, their fierce struggle writing a tragedy of human
passion on the white sheet spread by nature. And ever and anon a
hand or foot of Jan emerged from the tangle, to be gripped by
Lawson and lashed fast with rope-yarns. Pawing, clawing,
blaspheming, he was conquered and bound, inch by inch, and drawn
to where the inexorable shears lay like a pair of gigantic
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: wanted Bianca to fly with me; but she would not. That is the way with
women! So I went alone. I was condemned to death, and my property was
confiscated and made over to my next-of-kin; but I had carried off my
diamonds, five of Titian's pictures taken down from their frames and
rolled up, and all my gold.
"I went to Milan, no one molested me, my affair in nowise interested
the State.--One small observation before I go further," he continued,
after a pause, "whether it is true or no that the mother's fancies at
the time of conception or in the months before birth can influence her
child, this much is certain, my mother during her pregnancy had a
passion for gold, and I am the victim of a monomania, of a craving for
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
The Waste Land |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: men trudged out to the Frye place at the head of the glen. It
was horrible, yet hardly a surprise. There were more swaths and
monstrous prints, but there was no longer any house. It had caved
in like an egg-shell, and amongst the ruins nothing living or
dead could be discovered. Only a stench and a tarry stickiness.
The Elmer Fryes had been erased from Dunwich.
VIII.
In the
meantime a quieter yet even more spiritually poignant phase of
the horror had been blackly unwinding itself behind the closed
door of a shelf-lined room in Arkham. The curious manuscript record
The Dunwich Horror |
